Pranks, Punk and Industrial Culture from V. Vale

It’s always great to receive intelligent, lengthy responses to a “blog” (this one was focusing on “IMAGINATION” a few days ago) which aren’t just “dashed out,” but which required thought and actual TIME to write. Today’s “blog” is actually two responses to an earlier blog which came in via MySpace. They are reprinted below:

“Imagination…”

“Imagine what the world will be like 100, 50, even 20 years from now, if we keep on doing what we are doing: spawning like rabbits, consuming endless amounts of fossil fuels and natural resources, casting off tons of toxic non-biodegradable wastes and by-products. Imagine what sort of hell we are creating for our children (or for ourselves, if you are inclined to believe in reincarnation, as I am inclined to suspect).

“Or imagine as John Lennon dared to imagine… I like to imagine a world where the most insidious and ubiquitous, infernally determinant institution of our age – The Corporation – has become a historical artifact and taken its place in the ‘dustbin of history,’ replaced by something along the lines of the collective or the cooperative. Penny and Gee [of CRASS] have been paving the way for such a world to emerge – I have the utmost respect for them as responsible humans and as visionary artists.

“These are difficult times…

“As a creative artist, I must sometimes ask myself: What course shall I take? Do I serve my muse, as my spirit commands me to do… by staking out an imaginal territory through the medium of sound and music, constructing worlds out of my imagination, worlds composed of sound waves, stored as digital bits on plastic discs made from petrochemicals and circuit boards manufactured out of the toxic ores of the earth by the hands of Asian sweatshop laborers, so that when reproduced or broadcast on our ill-gotten technology the digital data is transmuted back into sound waves to reach the ears of a tiny niche audience of ‘experimental’ music listeners, to convey to the consciousnesses of others something of my own inner world, perceptions, and visions… so as “to provide inspiration to others, so they are more creative or more ‘themselves,’” as you suggest?

“Or do I sacrifice my will to create and deprioritize my creative aspirations so as to focus on the most urgent challenge in human history we now share: to try and save a planet in jeopardy of ruin and destruction as a result of human overpopulation and industrialization? Most of us do not want to believe that we are on the eve of destruction (it’s too psychologically threatening, and poses too many inconveniences to our habit-driven life… and who can ‘be bothered to’ make a change?) – but I believe that we are at this dreadful brink. Not so much ‘believe’ as know and feel it in my bones.

“Despite my apparent pessimism, at the same time I have a strong kernel of faith (I’m tossing about suspicious words and concepts here, like ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ but bear with me, if you will) that life WILL prevail, one way or another. I don’t think that we, as a species are going to get through this bottleneck of transformation and reach the other side, arriving at a fundamentally new paradigm of thought and values, without a great deal of suffering and sacrifice. We’ve set ourselves up for that, pretty much… passed the rubicon, as it were. Billions may die, suffering untold hardship and slow and agonizing death… so what else is new? Civilizations have arisen and perished over the ages, ours is neither indestructible or everlasting.

“Of course, what ‘they’ want us to believe is that it’ll all be okay if we just vote for this one or that one, we’ll get back on course and everything will work out. The ‘experts’ will come up with something to save us… nothing for me to worry about. Representative democracy (so-called) has become little more than an excuse from responsibility for most of us. It’s an idea that’s run its course, I think, parallel with the age of oil, now in decadence and decline. What’s next, fascism or anarchosyndicalism?… don’t ask me, I’m just a musician. But that old TOPY proverb seems more true now than ever:

“The voluntary relinquishing of responsibility for our lives and actions is one of thee greatest enemies of our time.” — Posted by Forms Of Things Unknown on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 5:40 AM

——-
“– reality is a prison. Reality is boring. What makes life interesting are almost any and all imaginative escape attempts from dreadful utilitarian “reality.” ”

“I am often trying to explain this to my 18 year old son who is majoring in art … and yet constantly questioning the value and purpose of art in this clockwork culture. It doesn’t help him when most of the art he sees out on the streets is in the form of advertising trying to sell him a fantasy designed by a corporate committee … or art in churches, selling group faith.

“I think the older you get, the more days and years you put in at some mundane job, along with a growing realization that your day to day routine has become predictable … the more the importance of “imaginative escape” starts to sink in on you.

“I also like to remind myself that this “reality” that we see is somewhat restricted and dictated by our senses.
That other animals see the world in other ways … through sound … different spectrums of light … etc.” — Posted by The Units on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 5:17 AM

–from V. Vale, RE/Search founder – yesterday we just picked up from the Oakland docks our reprint of PRANKS in both paperback and hardback limited edition of 500 on better glossy paper – www.researchpubs.com